The claims of those who support gay marriage rest entirely on the idea that science has proven
several things:

1. Gays have no choice whatsoever. Genes or hormones make them gay, and it is unreasonable
to expect them to control or limit their behavior in any way.

2. Even if there is an element of choice (or preventable environmental influence), there is no
reason to ask gays to control or limit their behavior, because homosexuality causes no harm to
anyone.

3. Because the first two points have been "scientifically proven," it is unfair to give any kind of
legal or social preference to the actions and relationships of heterosexuals. Any such preference
is like telling gays to "sit in the back of the bus."

After a lifetime spent in theatre and the arts, of course I am well acquainted with many
homosexuals; and because of who they are and who I am, I am close friends with several.

They have never directly harmed me, nor I them. Many have helped me in my life -- and I
them. We get along just fine.

So what's the big deal? If science says that homosexuality is natural, uncontrollable, and
harmless, why would any decent person -- especially one who knows and likes, or even loves, a
number of homosexuals -- wish to deprive them of something they desire so much?

Here's why:

1. Science does not say that gays have no choice whatsoever.

2. Science does not say that homosexuality harms no one, and that homosexual liaisons are as
valuable to society as marriage.

3. It is not unfair to give unique preference to monogamous heterosexual relationships, if that
preference and those marriages benefit all of society -- including homosexuals or potential
homosexuals.

The Commentary articles are highly critical of the existing science on homosexuality, while
Burr's Atlantic article takes almost everything at face value. In my opinion, no one should
attempt to speak on the subject without being familiar with the facts and reasoning presented in
all three.

Many people believe that because the American Psychiatric Association voted in 1973 to stop
treating homosexuality as a disorder, this means that the science is settled -- homosexuality is as
normal as heterosexuality.

But science is not done by majority vote -- particularly not by majority vote that was intensely
pressured and cajoled by homosexual activists.

"Normal." The leading scientific studies in support of this change were highly questionable.
Evelyn Hooker's study, for instance, which purported to show that homosexuals were perfectly
normal, studied a group of homosexuals who were members of organizations "extremely anxious
to provide their most admirable members," and "she removed from the sample anyone who
struck her as obviously pathological" (Rosenberg, p.37).

Given the way she stacked the deck, the surprise was that she didn't find that homosexuality was
better than heterosexuality.

In another study, Laud Humphreys interviewed homosexuals taking part in the bathhouse
culture. Using only questionnaires, and starting with his own strong bias in favor of finding even
the most promiscuous and dangerous sexual activity to be normal, it is no surprise that he
reached, as his conclusion, the opinion he had when he started -- that the only problem was the
way society reacts to homosexuality.

Twin Studies. Then there are the studies of twins who were adopted and raised apart,
comparing identical twins, who share all the same genes; fraternal twins, who are no more alike
than ordinary siblings; and non-twin siblings raised apart. The numbers deal with how often a
gay adoptee has a gay sibling.

Fraternal twins were twice as likely as ordinary siblings to both be gay, and identical twins were
five times as likely. But even identical twins were both homosexual only about half the time.
Thus the study suggests that while there is probably a genetic component, genes are certainly not
the sole cause of homosexual desires.

In fact, the fraternal twin result suggests that sharing the same womb is a strong contributing
factor, too, so that hormones, nutrition, deficiencies, or even acidity during gestation might be
strong contributors.

The study does not allow for the possibility that the physical appearance of the subjects might
have played a role. If seduction, molestation, or other sexual trauma contributes to
homosexuality, and if those are influenced by the perceived attractiveness of the subject to a
molester, seducer, or rapist, then the greater physical resemblance between identical twins may
account for some of the results.

Most scientists agree that twin studies suggest that social influences play a significant role,
alongside physical ones, in determining which people become identified as homosexuals in
adulthood. Which means that homosexuality, while influenced by prebirth events, is not
necessarily inevitable, but varies from case to case in its cause or in the strength of the impulse.

Anatomy. Much was made of a very flawed study that reported differences in the hypothalamus
of persons identified post mortem as homosexual. Other, better studies also point to visible
anatomical differences in the brains of homosexuals.

The suggestion in each case has been that these abnormalities must be the cause of
homosexuality. But unrelated research has been discovering that, contrary to longheld belief, the
brain's physical structures can change in response to human behavior.

At this point, it is impossible to tell how cause and effect are related in these cases, and the
studies are so ambiguous that it cannot yet be said for certain that there are structural differences
consistently tied to homosexual behavior.

Old Science. What no one seems to want to mention is that back in the days when mother-blaming Freudian theory was still dominant, the scientific research all pointed to overdominant
or sexually inappropriate behavior by mothers, and hostile or distant behavior by fathers, as
markers or causes of homosexuality.

It was this view of homosexuality that lost the political battle in the APA back in 1973, but the
vote that was taken then did not erase all the old research. No one can say now to what degree,
if any, the treatment of young children -- or pubescent ones -- by their parents or peers might
influence their self-perception and their adoption of a particular sexual identity.

Countless homosexual record their "awakening" to homosexuality in the form of rape,
molestation, or seduction; homosexuality seems to be one of the possible responses to profound
trauma or sexual misdirection at a susceptible age. Yet even the suggestion that this may be an
important cause of or influence on homosexuality is shouted -- no, screamed -- down.

Why? Because within the homosexual community people no perfectly well that not everybody's
introduction to homosexuality was the beautiful fulfilment of an idyllic dream. But that fact
does not fit the public story that supports their political agenda. It must not be admitted.

The Bi-Sexual Problem. Ever since 1973, the homosexuality normalizers have done their best
to avoid pointing out the prevalence of what is called "bisexuality," but which might just as
easily be called "indeterminacy." A large number of men and women marry and conceive
children before (at the age of a normal midlife crisis) they discover or reveal that they "were
always" homosexual.

Obviously, whether or not they were fantasizing a different partner, they successfully mated and
reproduced. This makes hash of the doctrines of inevitability.

What is clear is that the culture of homosexuality strongly pressures persons identified as
homosexuals to "come out of the closet," "stop fooling themselves," or otherwise surrender to
the doctrine that if you ever have a homosexual desire or are aroused by a homosexual partner,
that means that you "are" a homosexual and any attempt to repress or sublimate or simply refuse
to act on those desires is useless and doomed to failure no matter what you do.

And when many individuals report that they have successfully lived heterosexual lives despite or
after homosexual experiences or desires, they are dismissed by the normalizers as "victims of a
repressive society" or "never really homosexual in the first place" or, of course, as liars.

Variety. The picture that emerges from a dispassionate view of the existing science, as well as
the biographies of hundreds and thousands of actual homosexuals, is that homosexuality is not
just one thing. It does not manifest itself the same way in all persons identified as homosexuals.
It does not follow one unalterable course.

Many people have homosexual experiences or desires and fantasies in adolescence, yet grow up
to be fully functional, at least for a time, in heterosexual relationships.

Every homosexual reading this essay, no matter how enraged they might be at my deviance from
the party line, will recognize that I am speaking nothing but the truth that is obvious to all
participants in the homosexual community: Homosexuals are not exactly alike, and neither is
their degree of homosexual exclusivity.

In my opinion, all homosexuals should be enraged at the notion that of all human beings, only
homosexuals cannot control their sexual behavior by conscious choices. This dogma implies
that they are less than human. Yet this is precisely what the normalizers claim: "They can't help
it."

We can all agree that no one can help desiring what they desire. Desires come unasked for and
often from sources we do not understand.

But every other human impulse, natural or dysfunctional, can be recognized and controlled, at
least to a degree. We expect alcoholics to be able to refrain from driving when drunk. We
expect pedophiles to keep their hands to themselves. We expect aggressive males to curb their
need to fight with perceived rivals. We expect people whose mental illnesses are only contained
by drugs to take those drugs.

We expect heterosexual males -- males who are expressing the very drive that leads to
reproduction of the genes, and which in other primate species is often expressed as rape -- to be
able to recognize that "no means no" at every stage of wooing and coition.

In other words, our society right now says that everybody but homosexuals must curb whatever
innate desires are perceived, by our society, as harmful or undesirable, regardless of how natural
or evolutionarily productive they might be, or how strongly they are felt.

Homosexuals alone are treated, by our politically correct society, as being somehow perpetual
children, incapable of controlling their desires or limiting their expression in any way. They are
regarded, by those who presume to speak for them, as less volitional than other citizens of the
same age.

I refuse to believe that. The homosexuals that I know well are every bit as volitional as any
other people. They are fully human -- and are fully accountable for all their choices and
actions. They are as able as I am to contain and channel their sexual desires, if they believe there
is a reason to.

Science of Prevention. I agree with the normalizers that homosexuality should not be treated as
a mental illness. It is not like bipolarity or schizophrenia, which make it impossible for untreated
sufferers to lead normal lives.

On the contrary, some homosexuals have been and are among the most creative people in our
civilization (though not disproportionately so).

But there can be no serious question that homosexuality, to the degree that it cannot be overcome
or outlasted, is a reproductive dysfunction. A human body that has evolved with functional
organs of sexual reproduction is redirected to sexual activities that are reproductive dead ends.

The cultures that last longest are the ones that maximize the reproductive opportunities and
security of the largest number of their members. They must believe that they have a fair chance
to reproduce, must be reasonably sure that the children they raise are their own, and must trust
that society will provide mating opportunities for their adult children and not act to interfere with
their reproductive success.

Therefore, our scientific efforts in regard to homosexuality should be to identify genetic and
uterine causes, as well as environmental and social influences that put their children at greater
risk of this reproductive dysfunction so that the incidence of this dysfunction can be minimized,
and where it occurs anyway its negative effects on the individual and the rest of society can be
minimized.

Yet this very suggestion is invariably seized upon by normalizers as an attack on homosexuals, a
desire to "commit genocide" against the homosexual community.

It's perfectly all right for parents to grieve for any other loss or dysfunction a child suffers, but
the reproductive dysfunction called homosexuality they must pretend to receive without a qualm
-- or risk severe condemnation by one of the most vocal and intolerant groups in our society.

There is no "cure" for homosexuality because it is not a disease. There are, however, different
ways of living with homosexual desires. And if acceptable ways can be found to protect children
from developing this reproductive dysfunction before it even manifests itself, or to shape society
so as to encourage the least affected to achieve reproductive success -- i.e., evolutionary
normality -- why would we not want to assure that the children we bear would be free of this
dysfunction?

Wouldn't we prevent dyslexia, if we could? Why, we would even prevent tone-deafness! We
put braces on perfectly healthy children with buck teeth. But homosexuality? No -- we must
treat this as the dysfunction that we pretend is functional.

It makes no sense. And if the normalizers have their way, and it becomes criminal to give any
social or legal preference to reproductively productive patterns of marriage and family, why
would any rational person give their allegiance to such a community, such a legal system, such a
state or nation?

Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's
Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and
younger readers, and are increasingly used in schools.

Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary
fantasy (Magic Street,Enchantment,Lost Boys), biblical novels (Stone Tables,Rachel and Leah), the American frontier fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker
(beginning with Seventh Son), poetry (An Open Book), and many plays and
scripts.

Card was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and
Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s.
Besides his writing, he teaches occasional classes and workshops and directs
plays. He also teaches writing and literature at Southern Virginia University.

Card currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife,
Kristine Allen Card, and their youngest child, Zina Margaret.